


The old gods are dead.

by Zimmercj



Series: Mythology Musings [3]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 05:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15090206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimmercj/pseuds/Zimmercj
Summary: What happened to the Olympians as America rose in power.





	The old gods are dead.

**Author's Note:**

> This is still a work in progress, and may change over time. I was going for a poem but the story wanted prose. Any comments or constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated.

The old gods are dead. America killed them all. They were not mourned- there is no one left who remembers them here. The pantheon has crumbled into the wine dark sea. Olympus was razed, stone by stone; brick by brick; and idea by idea. None of the old guard is left to watch over us. 

Zeus was one of the first to go, there is no more law, order, or justice. We embrace hatred under the guise of legality- torture for prosperity. Our ideas of justice so warped not even a god based in debauchery can forgive us. 

Hera held on the longest, but America was something not even a mother could love forever. She saw what it did to her children, immortal and otherwise. She could make no more excuses for a place that forsook its own people, nonetheless strangers. Some in the old world say she holds on, trying to help her prodigal child from the shadows.

Poseidon never made it to shore, caught in a mass of discarded fishing nets and shopping bags. The great earthshaker silenced by human stupidity.

Demeter worked her self to death. Pushing her earth to make enough to sustain the children cast aside by the others, while the crops of the wealthy rotted where they stood. The haves pleased to have more than the have nots, even if it was blighted and festered. 

Athena killed herself, she found no more reason to continue when progress and advance were discarded for a book written when she was a teenager. Those who sought the truth were branded as heathens and punished for their “sins”.

Like his sister, Ares could no longer live in this world. Like many soldiers, he fell upon his own dagger after drinking himself numb. There is no more honour in warfare, that ended the second the first nuclear bomb was dropped. Ares could no longer weep for the horrors done in his name. 

Aphrodite simply disappeared, walking away from the people that forgot who she really was. Conflating the idea that sex was the same as love, that passion and lust were parallel. 

Hephaestus hung up his tools after walking into a Wal*Mart. There is no more pride or passion in craftsmanship anymore. In making everything the same everything lost its personality. How can the patron of artisans continue when there is no more art?

Artemis lost herself to her hunt. The thrill of the chase is gone, the fair sport abolished in favour of guns big enough to cause massacres single handedly, and pens so full that an animal couldn’t turn around. 

Hermes sat down one day and never got back up. The guardian of travelers is no longer needed, no one travels anymore. We are too preoccupied with the people we see trapped in our little screens to go and see each other. The messages we send are banal, no more letters are sent that carry any weight. We send a “brb” faster than a god could fly. 

Apollo died in disgrace. He couldn’t heal his family, and he couldn’t heal the world. Those that called upon his arts forgot the rule to “first do no harm”, sacrificing healing for misguided morality.

Dionysious drank himself to death, a victim of his own madness. He drank besides those who invoked him, wanting to purge memories from their heads and forget about the world around them. Both sinners and saints alike called upon him. He couldn’t keep up in this mad world.

Hestia died like so many nameless people in America. Alone...and forgotten...and unloved. 

The only god to make it in America is Hades, the god whose kingdom will never shrink. But not even the immortal guardian of the underworld escapes unscacathed. Not only has he had to see his family trapped in his domain for eternity, but as the years go on his kingdom expands faster than it ever has before. The ruler of death still curses the living, but not for the reasons he once did.


End file.
